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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422987">i know it's me that's supposed to love you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursus_mari/pseuds/ursus_mari'>ursus_mari</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(insofar of what i remember of canon), Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Friends to Enemies, Gen, or relationship study? idk i'm not great at tags</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:55:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursus_mari/pseuds/ursus_mari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I thought we were friends."</p><p>"So did I. I guess we were both wrong."</p><p>...</p><p>Wherein what Morgana thought to be found family turns out to be compromised of her blood brother and the traitors she once called friends. It goes downhill from there (in no small measure due to Uther. Indeed, most bad things can be boiled down to Uther).</p><p>But before that, there's a girl without a home and a little boy with a bundle of weeds in his hands, and they protect each other. After all, what are siblings for?</p><p>(Well, backstabbing, apparently, but <em>they</em> don't know that.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Morgana &amp; Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i know it's me that's supposed to love you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, as is apparently a theme with me, I wrote this ages ago and decided I liked it enough to post it. I finished from where I left off pretty quickly, and I'm a bit fuzzy on canon timeline, but here it is? Definitely unbetaed, so if there's a thing I can fix let me know.</p><p>I just. I love them a lot. And Morgana's arc into villainy had a heckton of potential that had the opportunity to be really powerful.</p><p>The title is from Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You by the 1975, which may or may not have spurred the creation of this fic in the first place.</p><p>brief caveat to note that while i am in fact a snarky asshole, that's not actually the spirit in which this was written. i'm fairly sure i was taking myself seriously at the time, even, if you can imagine</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing about Pendragons is that they put themselves together piece by piece, emotional armor and cutting words wielded like weapons.</p><p>Growing up with Uther is an oppressive, lonely, stifling experience, and Morgana knows this the moment she is taken into his care, even at the age of ten. But she's adaptable, and she can learn the art of becoming untouchable at the expense of herself and everyone around her. She's already started, after all, keeping her grief quietly in check so people will stop whispering, “oh, poor dear,” whenever she passes. She's tired of the weight of eyes, gleefully picking her apart for weaknesses.</p><p>What she doesn't anticipate is little golden-haired Arthur, eight years old and already solemn and serious.</p><p>Morgana has no time for the obnoxious little boy at first, grieving her father and stuck in a cold, unfamiliar castle. Arthur doggedly follows her around when he can, though, generally getting in her way and pushing her into arguments. These arguments do distract her from her grief, and she develops a grudging tolerance for the boy.</p><p>All of this is shattered, though, when Arthur, muddied and disheveled, offers her a bunch of equally dirty and really quite sad flowers. He doesn't meet her gaze as he mumbles, “I know you don't like me, but…” He kicks at the ground. “Cheer up?”</p><p>Morgana accepts them hesitantly, hands shaking. They really are pitiful, wilted and still streaked with mud, but when she meets the earnest gaze of the little boy she'd thought no more than a pest, she thinks they might be the most meaningful gift she's ever received.</p><p>Arthur, bashful again, looks at the ground and says, “It's no fun when you're all gloomy and sad.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Morgana says softly, and her chest aches when Arthur gives her a surprised grin, smiling big and wide like the sun coming out.</p><p>They still squabble, of course, but from then on, Morgana and Arthur are… friends, of a sort, as much as a mature, worldly woman of the age of ten can be friends with an immature little eight year old, as Morgana reminds Arthur frequently. But they chase each other through the halls and spar on the training field (Morgana beats Arthur quite soundly, much to her delight) and generally make menaces of themselves, and the dark, heavy cloud of grief that's covered Morgana for months lifts just a little. She's happy, kind of.</p><p>But with starting to care comes watching helplessly as Uther berates his son, letting him know exactly all the ways he's fallen short and as Arthur gets quiet and intense and gives her fewer of those bright, happy smiles. Arthur looks wretched and painfully lonely, and she sees him bite back tears more than once. She knows Uther notices too, because the next bit of the lecture is on the emasculating nature of tears and how they're a sign of weakness, and Morgana wants to scream at Uther right then. But she doesn't, because Uther is scary and walks around with a face like a thundercloud and she's terrified of being on the receiving end of one of those talks.</p><p>So Morgana does her best to cheer Arthur up after, coaxing bright laughs and blinding grins and affronted glares and pouts from him and doing her best to pick up the pieces. She taunts him into misbehaving with her and watches with relief as the cheerful, obnoxious little brat she knows (and loves, unwillingly. Not that she'd ever admit it, of course) reemerges from the shell of the dutiful prince.</p><p>Still, despite Morgana's best efforts, Arthur retreats further into himself the older they get. Uther chips away at Arthur, and Arthur, desperate for his father's approval, tears himself to pieces trying to reach a standard that quite frankly can't be reached. And even when Arthur manages it, because of course he does, the persistent, determined little brat, Uther raises his standards higher and acts as if Arthur's done the bare minimum rather than the literally impossible in hopes of making his father proud.</p><p>Morgana <em>hates</em> it, and she tells Uther so, having learned by now that Uther tolerates lip when it came to her, but that only leads to Uther piling more expectations on under the impression that Arthur's recruited Morgana so he can weasel out of his duties, so Morgana resigns herself to carefully worded appeals rather than the shouting she wants to do and picking up the pieces of Arthur’s shattered heart in hopes that he might smile only for Uther to break him all over again.</p><p>When Morgana starts to have nightmares, horrible, heartstopping things that leave her waking up screaming, Arthur camps out in her room and stubbornly wakes her up the moment she so much as twitches in what <em>might</em> be fear. They both end up exhausted for it, and Uther gives Arthur a harsh talking-to on proprietary, so Morgana eventually convinces a reluctant Arthur to give it up. Still, he leaves her favorite sweets sitting conspicuously on the table after particularly rough nights and does his best to help.</p><p>Meanwhile, tensions begin to simmer between Uther and Morgana even with the Arthur issue set aside, and Morgana's stormy moods return with a force. More often than not, Morgana and Arthur start to argue, genuinely argue, with shouting and pointed digs and bruised egos rather than the playful teasing that had been their habit, whenever either of them makes an effort and they both end up stomping away in a rage.</p><p>Morgana misses Arthur, but she finds solace and companionship in her maidservant, a soft spoken girl about her age called Guinevere who makes a face whenever Morgana uses her full name. For Arthur's part, he finds camaraderie in the company of the knights, and from them he learns to swagger around with an overgrown head and to be a horrible bully. Morgana glares whenever she sees him being cruel, though she sees the uncertainty and the regret and the discomfort that simmers under the surface. The knights and young nobles Arthur hangs around evidently do not share her feelings on the matter, because they slap Arthur on the back and jeer at his victims, and Morgana can practically see the moment Arthur decides that this acceptance is worth the discomfort every time she's around to see what he's become.</p><p>The matter of Morgana and Arthur's displeasure with each other comes to a head when Arthur, barely fourteen and so skinny he practically swims in his chainmail, loses spectacularly to a much older, more experienced knight in a public match. Uther gives Arthur a particularly vicious dressing down over it, throwing around words like “disappointment” and “weak” and “not my son.” Morgana finds Arthur later on the training field in the pouring rain, hacking at a training dummy.</p><p>“Wart,” she says simply, using an old nickname that had never failed to rile Arthur up.</p><p>Arthur stiffens, but doesn't stop. “Go away, Morgana.”</p><p>“No,” Morgana sniffs, as if she isn't soaked to the bone. “I'm rather partial to the weather, you see. Your company is an unfortunate side effect.”</p><p>Arthur snorts, but there's no humor in it. “What do you want, Morgana?” he asks, finally stopping for a moment and looking at her. He looks exhausted and pained and determined and heartbroken and absolutely tiny in his combat gear, and Morgana's chest aches.</p><p>Morgana hesitates, before saying, “You fought well.”</p><p>Arthur scoffs and turns away. “I lost, if you hadn't noticed. Quite spectacularly.”</p><p>“He was twice your size, Arthur,” Morgana says with a scowl. “And at least ten years older.”</p><p>Arthur lands a particularly vicious strike on the dummy, and says dully, “It doesn't matter. I should have won. I'm the crown prince.” Arthur stops once more and bows his head, fists clenched. “I should have…”</p><p>“Stop,” Morgana says firmly, and rips the sword away.</p><p>Arthur scowls at her, but he doesn't reach to take it back as they both know he could.</p><p>“Come inside, Arthur,” Morgana says more softly. With a smirk she knows isn't quite as convincing as she'd hoped, she adds, “Not unless you want me to wipe the floor with you like old times.”</p><p>Arthur snorts, and a reluctant smile tugs at his lips. “As if.”</p><p>“Now, if you're done sulking in the rain like a tragic hero,” Morgana says pompously, surer now that she's making progress. “I need you to help me break into the kitchens.”</p><p>“You could just ask--”</p><p>“But that's no fun,” Morgana complains, and Arthur graces her with a real smile this time, small but genuine. “Now, come on. It's your turn to be bait.”</p><p>“I'm always the bait!” Arthur complains.</p><p>“Yes, because I'm older,” Morgana says, trotting out her well worn argument to this particular point.</p><p>Arthur scowls at her, but he does make pretty spectacular bait, and afterwards, they sit for hours in a secluded corner eating their hardwon pastries, getting crumbs all over themselves and the floor and generally making a mess, and smiling themselves silly.</p><p>Morgana's lived with the Pendragons for six years, by this point, and somewhere along the way Arthur, annoying, obnoxious, earnest, noble Arthur, had wormed his way into her heart and become her brother in all but blood, a fact Gwen never fails to bring up with a knowing smile whenever Morgana complains. It's easy for her to say; <em>her</em> little brother actually sounds decent (though Gwen would deny this vehemently, swearing up and down that Elyan is an absolute menace no matter how much she loves him).</p><p>Their mended relationship doesn't change the fact that Arthur lives as a shell of expectations, though, hollow and hurt despite how good he’s become at hiding it, and Morgana takes it upon herself to rebel against Uther whenever she can. This is a point of contention between the two of them, but they've learned their lesson about long-lasting feuds. They fight, naturally, but they come back to sniping at each other shortly after, because, well. They're siblings, despite it all.</p><p>When Merlin arrives in Camelot, Morgana alternates between confused and delighted, though she tends toward delighted as a rule. She's never seen Arthur quite like this, but it becomes quite clear that Merlin drags the noble prat in Arthur kicking and screaming to the surface, so Morgana can only approve. Besides, she's never seen Arthur so annoyed. It's <em>brilliant.</em></p><p>And she <em>likes</em> Merlin. Arthur has never taken to someone so quickly in his life, no matter what he says, and Gwen seems smitten, which can only be a plus. A flustered Gwen is an adorable Gwen, after all. And then he risks his life trying to save Gwen and then drinks poison for Arthur, and Arthur seems to be listening more to himself and less to his father, and Morgana marvels that a mouthy, kind of goofy, hopelessly clumsy manservant seems to have flipped Arthur's life upside down and shaken out the best in him.</p><p>She watches her brother make a friend for maybe the first time ever and grow more confident in his own judgement, and pride sparks in her chest, though she'd never admit it. He's going to be a wonderful king, she knows. She can push him to follow his heart when she knows he wants to and sit back and watch him grow into what she knows he can be, and she's happy to.</p><p>Arthur nearly dies too often for Morgana's comfort, but other than that, the following year feels hopeful, like they're hovering on the edge of a new age.</p><p>And then. </p><p>And then Morgana's nightmares begin to grow steadily worse, and she can barely sleep for fear of the things in her dreams and the dawning awareness that they're real, all of them, and Uther might burn her alive if he knew. She almost kills him, once, right after he kills Gwen's father, because anyone who could cause such pain in Gwen and call it justice deserves death, a slow, painful one for every person he's killed and all those he still would if he got his way.</p><p>She almost kills him, but he's become a second father of sorts over all these years, flawed though he is, and she can't go through with it, won't watch him die. Especially not when she pictures Arthur's grief, a grief she knows all too well.</p><p>The year after is a blur of panic caused by the knowledge of her magic and the danger that brings to her and everyone around her. The people she loves fall away in the face of that, hard to focus on when she's so <em>scared</em>, power inside of her spinning out of control. And gods, her dreams have never been worse. She walks around in a daze of fear and exhaustion and hopelessness.</p><p>The bracelet, given by a woman that feels strangely familiar, is an intense relief. Finally, she can sleep again, and the world stops feeling quite so hazy around the edges.</p><p>She's lucid enough to realize that she despises Uther, wants him dead. <em>He’d kill me, he’d kill me, he'd kill me</em> pounds in her head whenever he’s in the room, and her nightmares are gone but the magic stays, and she is scared. She meets people who are like her, she meets <em>her sister</em>, and Uther would kill them all.</p><p>And Merlin, who she'd <em>trusted</em>, tries to kill her.</p><p>When Morgana wakes up, weak and sick, Morgause calmly tells her what Merlin had done, then offers to teach Morgana everything she knows. Morgana, hurt and betrayed and away from everything she's ever known, accepts. She's safe now.</p><p>She does learn in her year away. She learns how to cultivate dark, roiling hatred from her fear and her hurt and use it to hurt in turn. She learns to control that wild, dangerous energy that runs through her veins. She learns to curse Pendragons and all their ilk. In her year away, her hatred grows and grows, taking her over in great black waves, and she welcomes it. She is not powerless, she is not defenseless, she is not a victim, and she will return her hurt tenfold and teach them what it is to fear.</p><p>When Morgana comes back, though, power at her fingertips and her true sibling by her side, the hatred is hard to hold on to. She looks at Arthur and sees the little boy who offered her flowers, and she looks at Gwen and sees the girl who had been her lifeline. The two of them (and the traitor, she thinks bitterly. Merlin <em>isn't</em> hard to hate) had been part of the fabric of her world once and they'd been the best parts of it. She loves them, despite Morgause’s warnings about getting attached, and they love Merlin, and she can't reconcile the two facts. They should be mutually exclusive, shouldn't they? And Arthur, Arthur is a better man than his father, but is he different enough? Will he carry on with killing innocents? Will he listen when Merlin inevitably turns him there? He will, won't he, always so soft hearted and trusting.</p><p>But he is her <em>brother.</em> She can't hate him. She simply can't. She loves a Pendragon, and it eats her alive.</p><p>And <em>then. </em></p><p>And then, Morgana's world shatters around her. Arthur is not just her brother in sentiment, he is her brother in blood. And Uther is her father. He is her father, and he won't claim her for Arthur's sake. Anger and confusion and overwhelming hurt tangle together, and when she sees Arthur from then on, she can only think, <em>did he know?</em> The boy she knew, the man she knew, wouldn't keep this from her, but everything Morgana knew was built up in a false base and she can't help but wonder. Would he sacrifice her to take power?</p><p>Morgause says it's a good thing. It gives Morgana a legitimate claim to the throne, after all. And seeming to sense Morgana's doubts, she makes it clear that Arthur must have known. How could he not? (How could she not?) Morgause fans the flames of Morgana's hurt and helps her turn it into a weapon to wield. Arthur is her flesh and blood, and she's never felt less like his sister.</p><p>That seals the deal, all the doubts she might have harbored falling away, because how could they? Morgana is angry, and it's easy to pretend she hadn't loved Arthur as a little brother for more than half of her life. The facade has fallen away, and she sees him as what he truly is: an enemy, heir to a genocidal tyrant, who would kill her if he knew who she truly is, what she truly is.</p><p>She claims her crown, finally, and Gwen-- no, <em>Guinevere</em> stabs her in the back, but that was expected. It shouldn't hurt. </p><p>(It does.) </p><p>And when Arthur and his blasted knights take back the city, they take with it the only family, the only person, Morgana has left. Morgause dies, slowly and painfully, and Morgana is alone.</p><p>The year after is cruel, with only Agravaine, who Morgana loathes, for company. Morgana learns of a man destined to kill her, and she is so tired of being scared. She comes so close and it slips away from her again. The anger and the fear and the hatred she's learned to wield like a weapon turn on her in her idleness, her displacement from the only place she'd ever called home, and rips at her insides, tearing her apart until all she knows is rage.</p><p>“What happened to you, Morgana? I thought we were friends,” her brother says, brittle and confused and hurting. </p><p>Some small, long dead part of her stirs with the instinct to comfort. Take away the armor and the sword, taunt him out of the rain, bicker and steal from the kitchens. Coax a sunny smile and brilliant laughter and watch fondly as a little boy with mud on his face offers her a bunch of weeds.</p><p>“So did I,” Morgana replies, her traitorous voice wobbling a little. This is not her brother, not really, and they could never be friends. “I guess we were both wrong.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come chat with me on <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/ursus-mari">tumblr</a> @ursus-mari, if you'd like. recommend things to make me cry, i'll curse you and thank you in equal measures</p></blockquote></div></div>
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